A mixed bag of babies and a blog

Babies are people too

01/06/2012

Dress up is in full swing in these parts. Score one for the parents. I knew buying a dress up box for the girls would go over well, but there is always a moment with toddlers where you cannot measure their response. Would they notice that they got a joint gift for Christmas (again!) and want their own? Would they fight over one item and ignore the rest? Would the box be enjoyed by both girls or just Jocelyn?

I started collecting items around Halloween--picking up a few costumes (a ladybug, a pirate, a doctor) and then I hit the party store for a collection of hats and accessories. I made sure to pick two of almost everything. Just in case.

The goods

The first thing Jocelyn wanted to wear was the ladybug costume. She asked to wear it to school the following Monday. And the next day and the next. Aja took all the contents out of the box and put it back, and then threw it out again. I was thinking the entire thing might have been a bust.

But like most kids, they love to rediscover what has been there all along (or for the last week).

The best part about all this dressing up is that we used one of their two toy boxes to house the goods. Meaning, we were forced to purge our life of half the toys. The girls have yet to notice.

12/04/2011

We attended the Jack London Square tree lighting ceremony on Friday night. They have a whole assortment of events and entertainment, but we knew that the girls wouldn’t last two hours down there. We picked the girls up from school and we out to dinner, which is becoming one of Jocelyn's favorite things to do (Aja likes it only when there's food directly in front of her). We arrived at the ceremony just before the tree was lit. I think Jocelyn was most excited about the fake snow that spat out over the crowd, but her eyes got wide as we counted down, and went from this:

To this:

At home, I finished my own version of trimming the tree. Aja calls all the ornaments apples. “Mo apples! Mo apples,” and then she and Jocelyn touch each and every one. It’s a constant battle to get them to back up from the tree, but it’s worth it.

Jocelyn asked where the presents were and I told her they would arrive closer to Christmas. So she pulled all the books off the bookshelf and starting arranging them, telling her sister, “Come on Aja, these are our presents.”

12/01/2011

Sunday was Baby Liberation Day. The day, two years ago, that our baby girl came home. We explained to Jocelyn that we were celebrating the day that she met her baby sister—the day that she got so excited that she involuntarily pooped her pants. Okay, so she was only a year a half, but it was her first reaction to the little bit named Aja. Within a day we were living our new normal. Normal these days is full of lots of laughter and tantrums and sisterly love (and fights). Aja is the tormentor and Jocelyn is bossy and they are showing me signs of my future with two teenage girls. The eye rolling has begun and I can’t stop it.

Along with the great escape from baby jail, we have observed many other moments of growth and fun.

08/31/2011

Some days I miss when the girls were babies—when they could fit in the crook of my arm and I had to rock and shush them endlessly before they closed their eyes and sucked in a long breath of sleep. But then I am reminded that Jocelyn is now three.

We had a mother-daughter date yesterday. It wasn’t meant to be a date, since we were going to visit her pediatrician, but she was lit up with excitement from the moment I picked her up from daycare. She talked endlessly in the car about going to see Dr. Lee and about how she would tell Aja all about it. I left the stroller in the car and she walked with me inside, asking me questions about where we were and who was the woman that just walked by, and who is the man across the street. What was that loud noise?

In the waiting room, she sat on my lap and tried to help me fill out paperwork. She nuzzled my neck and in an attempt to make me laugh. The nurse called us in to take her weight and height, and she giggled her way down the hall and shook her booty when I tried to remove her clothes for the examination. She asked repeatedly, “Where’s Dr. Lee?” And as soon as the appointment was over, she asked, “Who was that?”

The survey says that she’s tall and healthy. We celebrated by walking over to Starbucks where I bought her a cup of fruit and an iced latte (for me). We sat at a table and talked. She told me how Dr. Lee looked in her eyes and mouth, and she demonstrated breathing in deep, in and out. She chomped on strawberries and asked when we were going to go back and get Aja.

We topped it all off by heading to the store. At first she was disappointed that we weren’t going to the warmers mahket, but her excitement rose when I put in her the cart. She listed off items she spotted in the aisles, reminding me that she doesn’t like carrots and she agreed that I should buy couscous.

Aja goes for her two-year appointment today. I don’t imagine that it will be a joyous date, especially with the shots that accompany the meal. Oh, and she has turned two. I keep starting a letter to her but I am still in disbelief. For days the page has read, “You are two years old.” To be continued…

08/25/2011

There was an article on Babble today about finding inspiration for (decorating) a little girl's room. The first photo is quite cute and would be nice for Jocelyn and Aja, especially considering they have a love of giraffes. The rest of the slideshow made me want to vomit, with the seventeen shades of pink and assorted canopies and pompoms.

It reminded me of an article I read recently in the New York Times about the photographer James Mollison. He published a book called, "Where Children Sleep." This is an amazing collection of photographs depicting children from around the globe and their bedrooms. It is described as a book about class and poverty, but also one of togetherness. I found the pictures both beautiful and unsettling. I could get political and talk about how unfair it is that one child has a room full of barbies while another sleeps on a mat on the floor under a leaking roof. But I'm really more interested in the ongoing story. A child's room says a lot about their life, but there is also a lot that is missing. My girls' room says a lot about them: their love for animals and their minimalist style. Or, the fact that we have made a purposeful decision to keep decorating to a minimum until we move to another apartment.

To the girls, it doesn't matter whether we add wallpaper or paint the baseboards. Were I to ask Jocelyn what she wants she would no doubt say one thing: pink.